This closely follows the last post – so it will be shorter, again in two parts – but take warning against the second part. Spare yourself and don’t read it.
Part One: Recrudescence is the rising again of something that has had a period of abatement.
In this case, Hilaire Belloc applied it to the rising again of Islam as a threat to the Western Christendom — even though when he lived, Islam had long been weak and practically dormant; people living in mountainous or desert areas of the Middle East, working hard to keep themselves fed, charmingly and fondly described by Mark Twain in Innocents Abroad.
Here are Belloc’s words, written in the first part of the 2oth century:
[T]he recrudescence of Islam, the possibility of that terror under which we lived for centuries reappearing, and of our civilization again fighting for its life against what was its chief enemy for a thousand years, seems fantastic. Who in the Mohammedan world today can manufacture and maintain the complicated instruments of modern war? Where is the political machinery whereby the religion of Islam can play an equal part in the modern world? . . . I say the suggestion that Islam may re-arise sounds fantastic—but this is only because men are always powerfully affected by the immediate past:—one might say that they are blinded by it.
This is the threat that he warns us about.
He goes on to discuss the apparent rejection of Christianity and observed the resultant weakening moral force in our civilization:
Neo-Paganism grows prodigiously . . . Paganism once erected into a system, once having taken on full shape, and proceeding to positive action, must necessarily become a formidable and increasingly direct opponent of the Catholic Church. The two cannot live together, for the points upon which they would agree are not the points which either thinks essential…. I have suggested that the threat of Paganism returning among the white races, and the strength of Paganism when it shall have returned, will be presumably enhanced by a sort of moral alliance between it and the exterior Paganism of the East, of Asia and not only of Asia, but, for that matter, of Africa too.
The recrudescence of Islam and the rise of neo-paganism are not unrelated. Both excerpts are taken from Belloc’s book: The Great Heresies.
End of the first part of this post. Stop here.
Because tomorrow (today?) is SUNDAY. As Saturday was Our Lady’s Day, Sunday is Our Lord’s Day. But it is only for the brave and the strong. In order to live honorably through a Sunday, you must realize what had to happen in order to get to Sunday. What Christ had to go through. And what Christ came to conquer.
Part Two:
Yes, the enemies of Christ crucified Him,2,000 years ago; it was us, all those who chose to oppose Him. And the enemies of Christ crucify today, by the thousands, according to the news reports — and photos.
Hilaire Belloc knew who the enemy is, knew who he was warning us about.
But they don’t always crucify:
In Belloc’s words: … our civilization again fighting for its life against what was its chief enemy for a thousand years.
This is what Christ came to conquer: sin, evil, wickedness, violence and murder; oh, yes – and cowardice and capitulation.